I was born in Burnley on Ashworth St, where we lived until I was 5 when my parents took us to live in Padiham, where I attended St Mathews school. At the age of 10 we moved back to Burnley to live in the Fulledge area where I attended Todmorden Road and Burnley Wood schools and spent my youth up to getting married.
I worked at Lambert and Howorths learning footwear design until 1970 when with my friends I went off to find work on Spain. Over the next few years I spent my time backpacking abroad, returning to England and travelling again.
I spent some time living in a bamboo hut which we had built ourselves in a commune of backpackers from all over the world at the back of Gran Canaria. I followed the hippy trail through the then Spanish West Africa, through the Sahara Desert into Morrocco before travelling on the Marrakesh Express down to Tangier and over to Gibralter where I worked on the docks for a while.
When Britain entered the Common Market I was in Munich on the first Monday morning looking for work and after travelling around Europe I finished up in the Channel Islands potato picking.
I got the chance of working on a Ski resort in Norway that year and so returned to the mainland to earn a bit more money before I went. That was when I met my wife Janet who I have been married to for the past 31 years and that was the end of my travelling days.
On settling down I started work in the building trade as a concreter where I progressed to becoming a concrete ganger and worked on some of the biggest building sites in the area. At the age of 18 I had become a trade union representative and I became the union rep on most of the site that I worked on.
During my travelling days the Vietnam War was raging and I met many American armed service personnel who described to us the horrors of that particular war and it was these stories that convinced me that I should get involved politically if I wanted to change things.
In 1984 I started work with Royal Mail where I became a union representative and eventually a Branch Secretary representing Postal and British Telecom members throughout East Lancashire a position that I have retired from this year.
I became a member of Burnley Borough Council in 1996 and then Lancashire County Council in 2001 and I am currently the Chairman of the Children’s Services Board which has responsibility for all Children Looked After in Lancashire.
I am also a member of the Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the Standards Board for Lancashire County Council and the Commons and Greens sub-committee.
I am also the Chairman of Governors at Basnett Street nursery.
I have a busy lifestyle doing the work that I enjoy the best and in our spare time both my wife and I get out into the country side walking.
I am also a Pastoral Assistant at St James church Briercliffe.
